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Microbiology and Molecular Biology... Sep 2008To better understand the underlying mechanisms of aerovirology, accurate sampling of airborne viruses is fundamental. The sampling instruments commonly used in... (Review)
Review
To better understand the underlying mechanisms of aerovirology, accurate sampling of airborne viruses is fundamental. The sampling instruments commonly used in aerobiology have also been used to recover viruses suspended in the air. We reviewed over 100 papers to evaluate the methods currently used for viral aerosol sampling. Differentiating infections caused by direct contact from those caused by airborne dissemination can be a very demanding task given the wide variety of sources of viral aerosols. While epidemiological data can help to determine the source of the contamination, direct data obtained from air samples can provide very useful information for risk assessment purposes. Many types of samplers have been used over the years, including liquid impingers, solid impactors, filters, electrostatic precipitators, and many others. The efficiencies of these samplers depend on a variety of environmental and methodological factors that can affect the integrity of the virus structure. The aerodynamic size distribution of the aerosol also has a direct effect on sampler efficiency. Viral aerosols can be studied under controlled laboratory conditions, using biological or nonbiological tracers and surrogate viruses, which are also discussed in this review. Lastly, general recommendations are made regarding future studies on the sampling of airborne viruses.
Topics: Aerosols; Air Microbiology; Air Pollutants; Environmental Monitoring; Equipment Design; Humans; Virology; Virus Diseases; Viruses
PubMed: 18772283
DOI: 10.1128/MMBR.00002-08 -
MBio Nov 2015Modern molecular technology, and particularly high-throughput sequencing (HTS), has revolutionized virus discovery and expanded the depth and breadth of the virome....
Modern molecular technology, and particularly high-throughput sequencing (HTS), has revolutionized virus discovery and expanded the depth and breadth of the virome. Recent HTS was used to identify and discover a previously undescribed member of the family Flaviviridae that has genomic features characteristic of both hepaciviruses and pegiviruses. This virus, designated human hepegivirus-1 (HHpgV-1), may represent a previously undescribed new genus in the Flaviviridae family with implications for public health and blood supply safety. Detecting uncharacterized viruses such as HHpgV-1 in clinical samples requires an unbiased screening method that is as sensitive as PCR, while simultaneously detecting multiple rare viral sequences. The virome-capture-sequencing platform for vertebrate viruses (VirCapSeq-VERT) uses positive-selection oligonucleotide capture to sensitively detect sequences from every known vertebrate virus, even in high-background specimens with low-abundance viruses. VirCapSeq-VERT can also detect uncharacterized viruses with sequence homology to known viruses, enabling a new paradigm for virus detection.
Topics: Humans; Metagenomics; Microbiota; Virology; Viruses
PubMed: 26556279
DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01767-15 -
Clinical Microbiology Reviews Jan 2019Respiratory viral infections are associated with a wide range of acute syndromes and infectious disease processes in children and adults worldwide. Many viruses are...
Respiratory viral infections are associated with a wide range of acute syndromes and infectious disease processes in children and adults worldwide. Many viruses are implicated in these infections, and these viruses are spread largely via respiratory means between humans but also occasionally from animals to humans. This article is an American Society for Microbiology (ASM)-sponsored Practical Guidance for Clinical Microbiology (PGCM) document identifying best practices for diagnosis and characterization of viruses that cause acute respiratory infections and replaces the most recent prior version of the ASM-sponsored Cumitech 21 document, , published in 1986. The scope of the original document was quite broad, with an emphasis on clinical diagnosis of a wide variety of infectious agents and laboratory focus on antigen detection and viral culture. The new PGCM document is designed to be used by laboratorians in a wide variety of diagnostic and public health microbiology/virology laboratory settings worldwide. The article provides guidance to a rapidly changing field of diagnostics and outlines the epidemiology and clinical impact of acute respiratory viral infections, including preferred methods of specimen collection and current methods for diagnosis and characterization of viral pathogens causing acute respiratory tract infections. Compared to the case in 1986, molecular techniques are now the preferred diagnostic approaches for the detection of acute respiratory viruses, and they allow for automation, high-throughput workflows, and near-patient testing. These changes require quality assurance programs to prevent laboratory contamination as well as strong preanalytical screening approaches to utilize laboratory resources appropriately. Appropriate guidance from laboratorians to stakeholders will allow for appropriate specimen collection, as well as correct test ordering that will quickly identify highly transmissible emerging pathogens.
Topics: Acute Disease; Clinical Laboratory Techniques; Humans; Microbiological Techniques; Molecular Diagnostic Techniques; Respiratory Tract Infections; Virology; Virus Diseases
PubMed: 30541871
DOI: 10.1128/CMR.00042-18 -
Current Opinion in Virology Jun 2012The characterization of viral genomes has accelerated due to improvement in DNA sequencing technology. Sources of animal samples and molecular methods for the... (Review)
Review
The characterization of viral genomes has accelerated due to improvement in DNA sequencing technology. Sources of animal samples and molecular methods for the identification of novel viral pathogens and steps to determine their pathogenicity are listed. The difficulties for predicting future cross-species transmissions are highlighted by the wide diversity of known viral zoonoses. Recent surveys of viruses in wild and domesticated animals have characterized numerous viruses including some closely related to those infecting humans. The detection of multiple genetic lineages within viral families infecting a single host species, phylogenetically interspersed with viruses found in other host species, reflects past cross-species transmissions. Numerous opportunities for the generation of novel vaccines will arise from a better understanding of animal viromes.
Topics: Animals; Humans; Viral Vaccines; Virology; Virus Diseases; Viruses; Zoonoses
PubMed: 22463981
DOI: 10.1016/j.coviro.2012.02.012 -
Viruses Nov 2020Animal models and cell lines are invaluable for virology research and host-pathogen interaction studies. However, it is increasingly evident that these models are not...
Animal models and cell lines are invaluable for virology research and host-pathogen interaction studies. However, it is increasingly evident that these models are not sufficient to fully understand human viral diseases. With the advent of three-dimensional organotypic cultures, it is now possible to study viral infections in the human context. This perspective explores the potential of these organotypic cultures, also known as organoids, for virology research, antiviral testing, and shaping the virology landscape.
Topics: Host-Pathogen Interactions; Humans; Models, Biological; Organoids; Research; Tissue Culture Techniques; Virology
PubMed: 33238561
DOI: 10.3390/v12111341 -
Retrovirology May 2009Friends and colleagues remember John N. Brady, Ph.D., Chief of the Virus Tumor Biology Section of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, who died much too young at the age...
Friends and colleagues remember John N. Brady, Ph.D., Chief of the Virus Tumor Biology Section of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, who died much too young at the age of 57 on April 27, 2009 of colon cancer. John grew up in Illinois and received his Ph.D. with Dr. Richard Consigli at Kansas State University studying the molecular structure of polyomavirus. In 1984 John came to the National Institutes of Health as a Staff Fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Norman Salzman, Laboratory of Biology of Viruses NIAID, where he was among the first to analyze SV40 transcription using in vitro transcription systems and to analyze regulatory sequences for SV40 late transcription. He then trained with Dr. George Khoury in the Laboratory of Molecular Virology NCI, where he identified SV40 T-antigen as a transcriptional activator protein. His research interests grew to focus on the human retroviruses: human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), analyzing how interactions between these viruses and the host cell influence viral gene regulation, viral pathogenesis and viral transformation. His research also impacted the fields of eukaryotic gene regulation and tumor suppressor proteins. John is survived by his wife, Laraine, and two sons, Matt and Kevin.
Topics: History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; United States; Virology
PubMed: 19454030
DOI: 10.1186/1742-4690-6-48 -
Developmental Biology Dec 2010The categorical data set is an important data class in experimental biology and contains data separable into several mutually exclusive categories. Unlike measurement of... (Review)
Review
The categorical data set is an important data class in experimental biology and contains data separable into several mutually exclusive categories. Unlike measurement of a continuous variable, categorical data cannot be analyzed with methods such as the Student's t-test. Thus, these data require a different method of analysis to aid in interpretation. In this article, we will review issues related to categorical data, such as how to plot them in a graph, how to integrate results from different experiments, how to calculate the error bar/region, and how to perform significance tests. In addition, we illustrate analysis of categorical data using experimental results from developmental biology and virology studies.
Topics: Animals; Biology; Confidence Intervals; Data Display; Data Interpretation, Statistical; Developmental Biology; Virology
PubMed: 20826130
DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2010.08.018 -
Current Opinion in Virology Jun 2022
Topics: Host Microbial Interactions; Virology
PubMed: 35613537
DOI: 10.1016/j.coviro.2022.101229 -
Virology Journal Jun 2014In 2003, Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus (APMV) was first described and began to impact researchers around the world, due to its structural and genetic complexity. This... (Review)
Review
In 2003, Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus (APMV) was first described and began to impact researchers around the world, due to its structural and genetic complexity. This virus founded the family Mimiviridae. In recent years, several new giant viruses have been isolated from different environments and specimens. Giant virus research is in its initial phase and information that may arise in the coming years may change current conceptions of life, diversity and evolution. Thus, this review aims to condense the studies conducted so far about the features and peculiarities of APMV, from its discovery to its clinical relevance.
Topics: Mimiviridae; Virology
PubMed: 24976356
DOI: 10.1186/1743-422X-11-120 -
Journal of Virology Feb 2015The beginning of the second century of research in the field of virology (the first virus was discovered in 1898) was marked by its amalgamation with bioinformatics,... (Review)
Review
The beginning of the second century of research in the field of virology (the first virus was discovered in 1898) was marked by its amalgamation with bioinformatics, resulting in the birth of a new domain--viroinformatics. The availability of more than 100 Web servers and databases embracing all or specific viruses (for example, dengue virus, influenza virus, hepatitis virus, human immunodeficiency virus [HIV], hemorrhagic fever virus [HFV], human papillomavirus [HPV], West Nile virus, etc.) as well as distinct applications (comparative/diversity analysis, viral recombination, small interfering RNA [siRNA]/short hairpin RNA [shRNA]/microRNA [miRNA] studies, RNA folding, protein-protein interaction, structural analysis, and phylotyping and genotyping) will definitely aid the development of effective drugs and vaccines. However, information about their access and utility is not available at any single source or on any single platform. Therefore, a compendium of various computational tools and resources dedicated specifically to virology is presented in this article.
Topics: Computational Biology; Databases as Topic; Internet; Virology
PubMed: 25428870
DOI: 10.1128/JVI.02027-14